Express entry review to ease path to permanent residency for foreign students

Thursday, March 17, 2016

The Liberal government is looking to ease some rules to make it easier for international students who have been "shortchanged" by express entry to obtain permanent residency, says Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister John McCallum.

Express entry was launched by the previous Conservative government as a way to fill the country's labour needs by fast-tracking permanent residency, in six months or less, for highly skilled foreign nationals.

"We must do more to attract students to this country as permanent residents," McCallum said following a meeting this week in Toronto with his provincial and territorial counterparts.

"International students have been shortchanged by the express entry system," McCallum said. "They are the cream of the crop, in terms of potential future Canadians."

Many international students have been calling on the Liberal government to give them extra points for post-secondary credentials obtained in Canada by making some changes to the system used to rank foreign nationals under express entry.

Harpreet Singh, 24, is an international student who emigrated from India in 2011 after he finished high school.

He told CBC News that he applied for express entry over a year ago and although he has obtained a two-year post-secondary degree from a college in Ontario, he still doesn't have enough points to obtain permanent residency.

"If nothing works out, I'll have to go back," Singh said in a phone interview with CBC News. Singh is currently pursuing a four-year university bachelor's degree in business management.